Tradwife or radwife? Which one are you?
Another week, another perplexing story about tradwives. This time, the American actress Julianne Hough has made headlines for posting an Instagram reel to her five million followers, in which she dances around a suspiciously pristine kitchen in an itsy-bitsy white bikini, bearing a frying pan.
This, it seems, is newsworthy not because frying a steak over an open flame while nearly-naked and pouting at a camera in completely the opposite direction gives a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘burns risk’. Instead, it’s because of how she hashtagged it: “What’s the opposite of #tradwife?”
For those still blissfully unaware of what the tradwife trend is, it's a term that originated from Utah and then colonised social media quicker than you can say: “Spooky Mormon Hell Dream”. They don’t work outside the home, but go to extraordinary lengths to create work for themselves inside it. Take the tradwife queen Hannah Neeleman, a former ballerina who now makes an equally arduous performance out of domesticity. On Instagram, Tiktok or YouTube, you can join her 18 million collective followers and see her milk a cow directly into her homemade chai latte before sharing it with one of her eight, adorably bonneted children.
Or take Nara Smith. Her toddlers recently asked for a cheese toastie, so now you can watch along as she bakes the bread from scratch and, while it rises, make cheese from curds. An insane use of time and energy, I’m sure we can all agree. But is it any battier than trying to turn supper into a peculiarly perilous erotic dance?
Don’t both options just look a little tiring? And also, maybe, a bit... tired? It brings to mind those ‘choose your fighter’ scenes from retro arcade games, when you got to select from one of several faintly problematic caricatures in which to cosplay. “You’re about to enter the battlefield that is ‘just getting through another day without losing your mind/your job/one or more of your children’. What armour will you pick: shoulder-padded trouser-suit, Amish apron or Playboy Bunny bikini?”
So here’s a radical idea. I’d like to introduce a whole new template for your consideration: the good enough wife (hashtag: #radwife). It borrows heavily from the concept of the "good enough mother" coined in 1953 by the paediatrician and psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott (not a problem, since short cuts are very much in the spirit of the thing).
The good enough mother – said Winnicott - is responsive and caring, and all those dreamy qualities embodied by the tradwife. But – and this is crucial - she’s also, quite knowingly, intentionally and unashamedly, a bit imperfect. Because, said Winnicott, if babies do not experience small and manageable doses of frustration, their concept of external reality becomes a bit... squiffy. They live in a fantasy land in which everything they need (clean socks, carrot puree, clean bum) materialises magically in response to their desire. They fail to develop a sense of their own ability to influence the world (read: roll up their own sleeves and get on with things). He did not say – explicitly at least – that the same applied to tweens/teens/partners/bosses/countless catastrophic cabinet ministers in recent memory. But he didn’t need to, did he?
Essentially, Winnicott was suggesting, it’s actually a kindness to let babies live in a world that isn’t always made pristinely, unimprovably Instagram ready for them. By extension, (and by spending more time sitting down, less time milking cows/doing a chilly dance) the good enough wife does her kids, family and the wider world a solid too. But also – far most importantly – she does herself one. That’s my kind of fighter.
TRAD WIFE VS RAD WIFE
Pudding?
Tradwife: spent the morning in the orchard, gathering organic apples into her apron. Then she put them through some sort of antique peeler that looks like a torture device, stood over her Aga stewing them, before topping them with oats she harvested herself, in a horse and cart, without smudging her mascara.
Radwife: went to Sainsburys and grabbed one of those fancy Cook crumbles. She never actually said she baked it herself. If that’s the conclusion everyone comes to after she’s transferred into an oven dish and hidden the plastic tray under the recycling, that’s their business.
Parenting?
Tradwife: home-schools all twelve children. Using a vintage abacus. No screens till they’re 36.
Radwife: Parks all three in front of Horrible Histories after school. Job done.
Dance class?
Tradwife: executes pristine pliés in a cow field, at sun rise.
Radwife: watches Strictly. On the sofa. On Sundays.
Outfit?
Tradwife: by day - a floaty floral smock dress. By night - a slinky, sultry, silky dress
Radwife: by day - quite possibly the same dress but for different reasons (it’s capacious, you can eat a really decent lunch in it, plus it has pockets). By night - the same thing. Because honestly, who has time?
Once the kids are in bed?
Tradwife: hovers round her husband, bearing drinks and snacks
Radwife: has a bath, and hollers down for a cup of tea and a custard cream.
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